Mrs. Cader: Memories of the Fort

Join Fort raconteur, Mrs. S. F. Cader, for this charming walking tour. Mrs. Cader’s family has lived in the Fort for over 100 years, so the tour brings a personal, autobiographical approach to the history and architecture of this 400-year-old World Heritage site.

Alexander McCall Smith: The Number One Detective of Human Nature

In this session, the prolific writer of The Number One Ladies’ Detective Series will share with us his experiences as an observer of human nature, a writer and a critic.

Emeritus Professor of Medical Law Alexander McCall Smith, CBE, has in a long writing life, perfected the art of the deft, brief and astute observation and assessment of situation and place. Like Austen, McCall Smith explores humanity on what seems a small stage – the space of a particular local community – and in so doing startlingly brings to life the sweep and expanse of human experience.

(Alexander McCall Smith’s participation in the Festival is made possible by the generous sponsorship of Sri Lanka Telecom.)

Mark Twain, describing the journey that would take him to Australia, famously said that truth is stranger than fiction. Richard Flanagan goes one step further and says “Fiction is not a lie but a truth, a necessary truth . . . Without fiction, we poison ourselves on the lies of the first person . . . For if story as lies leads us to a dark place, story as fiction offers the possibility of transcendence and liberation, the recognition of the many things each of us are.”

Richard Flanagan began his most recent novel First Person before he won the 2014 Man Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to The Deep North. In conversation with fellow Australian Chris Hanley, Founder of the Byron Bay Literary Festival, Richard will share with us the extraordinary story of how he came to write First Person and arising from that, his views on the writing experience and in particular, on the relationship between self and creation.

Richard Flanagan’spresence at the Festival is made possible by the generous sponsorship of the Festival title sponsor Fairway Holdings Ltd.

In this, the Final Festival session for 2018, Pankaj Mishra, one of the foremost intellectuals of the day and acclaimed writer of the 2017 publication Age of Anger: A History of the Present, will discuss the future of Asia through the lens of the past with Nisid Hajari, foreign affairs analyst and author of Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition.

Pankaj Mishra’sparticipation in the Festival is made possible by the generous sponsorship of DFCC Bank.

Event Ticket: Rs. 1,000

12:00 noon – 6:00 pm

Jazz Festival, Fashion Show and Gourmet Galle

Participant: Jerome & Tanuja with other Local and International Artists

Location: Law Court Square, Galle Fort

Date: Sunday, Jan 28th 2018

Duration: 6:00 hrs

Access:FREE EVENT

Availability: N/A

The Fairway Galle Literary Festival 2018 will wrap up on Sunday afternoon with a celebration of jazz in the Law Court Square. We will have favourite locals, including Jerome and Tanuja, as well as international artists performing. The afternoon will also feature a fashion show, great street food, wine, beer and cocktails.

7:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Chariots of Fire (1981): A Screening

Event: Film Screening

Location: Law Court Square, Galle Fort

Date: Sunday, Jan 28th 2018

Duration: 1:30 hrs

Access: FREE EVENT

Availability: N/A

This film was the brain-child of The Lord David Puttnam and depicts the compelling story of two young men determined to be true to themselves in the class-obsessed and religiously divided United Kingdom of the early 1920s. Each of these two young men is preparing to take part in the 1924 Paris Olympics, the first Olympics to take place after the long interval during which the First World War precluded the event. Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), a devout Christian born to Scottish missionaries in China, sees running as part of his worship of God’s glory and refuses to train or compete on the Sabbath, even when the Olympic timetable calls for him to do so. Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) overcomes anti-Semitism and class bias, but neglects his beloved sweetheart Sybil (Alice Krige) and antagonises the Fellows of his Cambridge College in his single-minded quest. Ultimately the two men’s single-mindedness paradoxically works in tandem, enabling each to emerge from the Olympics having met the demands both of country and conscience.

The Vengalis sound track for this film – with its inspiring classical feel and yet anachronistic electronic elements, perfectly captures the transitional moment in history at which this film takes place, and is still widely recognised.